The Plan
by FadeIntoTheBackground
Summary: Little Mentalist oneshot. Kind of Jisbon. MERRY CHRISTMAS EMILY! The team are getting into the Christmas spirit. Kind of long, but I hope you enjoy it.


**OK, so this is Emily's Christmas present, kind of long and boring, very pointless, but I'm not going to spoil this completely by moaning about how crap it is! It's just for Em, thats why I wrote it.**

**Disclaimer: Oh if only the mentalist was mine......**

**MERRY CHRISTMAS EMILY! (Tiva4evaxxx)**

A white envelope flew across the room and landed on the floor just in front of her. She looked up.

'What is this?' Lisbon asked Jane suspiciously, picking it up and turning it over to see her first name written on the front.

'A Christmas card.' Jane was lying back, feet up on his sofa, sorting through a dozen more envelopes. 'You are the first colleague to receive one from me. Be honoured.'

'Jane, its only just turned December. Its the second today.'

'Organisation is the key to success, my dear Lisbon.'

Lisbon slit open the envelope and pulled out the large card, which pictured two penguins standing together on a heart shaped chunk of ice. She raised her eyebrows at Jane, a slight questioning look on her pretty face.

'The festive season brings love and joy to all,' Jane grinned at her, before abandoning the rest of his envelopes and leaning back on the sofa, folding his arms and closing his eyes.

Lisbon gave up. Taking the card with her, she rolled her eyes at the now motionless Jane before heading down the corridor to her office, where she took another look at the card before setting it on her desk. Half an hour later, she headed into the main working area, where the now awakened Jane was handing out cards to Grace, Rigsby and Cho.

'Is there any case?' She looked pointedly at Jane.

'Nope.' Rigsby leaned back in his chair, shirt sleeves rolled up in his usual casual way.

'Thanks Jane.' Grace said, opening her card.

Lisbon went over to look. 'Did you get one like mine?'

But Grace's card was a smaller, simpler one, very unlike the flamboyant one that Lisbon had received. 'What was yours like?' Grace asked her.

'Oh, it was just a card.' Lisbon shrugged.

'I'm hurt,' Jane called over from Cho's desk. 'It was a symbol of friendship Lisbon.'

Lisbon rolled her eyes once again. 'Just get back to work, Jane,' she instructed, heading out of the room and down the corridor. She was halfway to her office when she realised that there was no case.

The next day, Jane was wearing a large Santa hat, and when Lisbon arrived, he was trying to persuade a giggling Grace to entwine tinsel in her hair. For some reason, the low level flirting made Lisbon hurt, although she couldn't quite work out why.

The day after that, she turned up to find her office door wreathed in red and silver tinsel. She quickly took it all down before storming in.

'It took me twenty minutes to get the ends even.'

Lisbon whipped round, seeing Jane already leaning casually against the door frame, arms folded. Geez that guy moved fast.

'Just go away, I don't want tinsel all over my office,' she told him, finding that she regretted the sharp, snappy words as soon as they came out of her mouth.

Jane looked slightly taken aback. After a moment, he shrugged. 'Okay then, but I'll have the tinsel if you don't want it. It would be nice to decorate Grace's desk as a surprise.' He picked the curls of it off the floor before heading off.

Now it was Lisbon's turn to be taken aback. She had offended him, he had only tried to help her. Why didn't she think before her natural instincts told her that she wanted to be alone, was that really true? She agonized at her desk for a whole hour, and when she finally convinced herself to apologize to him, she got up and headed down to the main working area, expecting Jane to be lolling on the sofa. But the sight she saw was so surprising that she had to turn around to go back to her office. Grace was sitting at her chair, Jane was standing behind it, his arms around her, hugging her tightly while she laughed, his Santa hat askew over her hair, the tinsel now covering the front of her desk.

Lisbon didn't stop to listen to the blaring Christmas music, she paid no attention to Rigsby's dark looks at Jane, or Cho's surprised expression, she just turned and ran back to her office. Sitting alone at her desk in the cold, dark room, she was surprised how hurt she felt, how bewildered. But soon surprise turned to anger, and she mentally pulled herself together. For goodness sake, she was acting as if – as if she loved Jane. Lisbon tried to laugh at the thought, but found she couldn't, as the image of Jane and Grace came back into her mind. Instead of laughing, she put her head down on her arms, and simply retreated into a black world, attempting to block Jane entirely from her mind.

Walking down the corridor to lunch an hour later, she rounded the corner and met Jane and Grace. Together. Hugging. Jane had his face buried in Grace's shoulder, and Grace was smiling over his shoulder. Her eyes met Lisbon's for a brief moment, and Lisbon was sure that the anger surging through her veins was clearly visible all over her face. Grace's smile faltered for a moment, but her eyes then slid straight past Lisbon and closed, the contented smile returning to her face.

Suddenly discovering that her appetite had disappeared, Lisbon tuned on her heel and marched into her office, fighting against the unexpected shivers that were making her fingers tremble. Jane had never hugged Grace before, she was sure of it. He had certainly never hugged Grace like that. That was the way he had hugged Lisbon, and it had felt safe and warm and good, and for that moment, all her troubles had meant nothing, as long as she was with Jane. That must be how Grace was feeling right now.

Lisbon gave way to her tears, not even attempting to fight them back, knowing that she could not deny it any more. It was impossible. Her mouth silently formed the words before she slumped her head down into her arms once again. _'I love you Patrick Jane!'_

Lisbon woke on Christmas morning with the same heaviness that had filled her since she had left work. A dull, empty feeling. She had tried everything, attempting desperately to convince herself that it didn't mean anything, she and Jane had hugged like that, yet they were just friends. Grace was doing nothing wrong. Surely nothing was happening between them. Yet Lisbon just couldn't shake the nasty feeling that they were more than just friends.

Lisbon didn't bother to make much of an effort on Christmas. She usually went out on Christmas eve, with a random group of friends, ones she never really knew, ones that changed every year. This year she hadn't bothered. There was no one she wanted to spend the day with. Not now anyway....

She ate a simple lunch, just some chicken salad with a mince pie, before opening the few presents she had. One of the presents stayed under the fake tree. She didn't bother to touch it.

"My dear Teresa," the tag read, " Merry Christmas, and let us hope that next year will be busy and full of joy! From Patrick."

She flicked on the TV, and spent half an hour watching anything that was on, staring at the screen without really seeing it. There was a knock on the door, and she sat up, suddenly tense. Could it be...? But of course it wasn't, why would it be? Lisbon turned off the TV and headed over to open the door.

'Merry Christmas Teresa!'

'Jane.'

'You don't sound too thrilled to see me here, do you now?'

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. 'Should I be?'

'Ouch,' Jane looked genuinely taken aback. 'I though everyone was cheerful on this particular day, like I said to you, the festive season brings love and joy to all.'

'Thats great Jane, now what do you want?'

'Can I come in?'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

'I asked nicely.'

Lisbon heaved a sigh. 'Fine.' She stepped back reluctantly, and he stepped in. 'But you may as well go and spend the day with Grace,' she mumbled to herself.

He turned. 'What was that?'

Lisbon flushed, of course he would have to pick up on that, no matter how quietly she had said it. 'I just said....nothing.'

'Hmmm.' Jane took a quick look around the main room of the apartment, before spotting the coat rack behind the door and lifting off a coat. 'Put this on.'

She eyed him suspiciously. 'Why?'

'Just do it, do you have a scarf? Gloves? You're going to need them.'

'Why? What are we doing?'

'You're coming with me, there's something I want to show you.'

'Jane, its cold outside-'

'Which is why I am advising you to wear a coat.'

'-and what if I just want to stay here?'

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her, and she blushed again. His tone softened abruptly.

'Please come with me Teresa.'

Damn it, why did he always have to do that to her, in that melting tone, with that intent stare? 'I...OK,' she said.

'Excellent!' He sprung to life once again, throwing her coat at her and picking up a scarf from the armchair.

Twenty minutes in the car, and an awkward silence later, Lisbon found herself walking up a hill on a frozen pathway, with frosted trees either side, Jane striding confidently beside her as if this were perfectly normal.

'Trust you to play this kind of prank on me, Jane. I'm cold, what's the point of this?'

'There is no prank, you'll see in a minute.'

They reached the top of the hill, and looked down on a rather busy sight. Below were about forty people milling around a large pond, half of them were in it. No, they were on it, skating. By the side of the pond, all wrapped up and carrying skating boots, were Rigsby, Grace and Cho.

'What is this?' Lisbon turned to Jane.

'A Christmas celebration, we can all go skating, you can hire boots here.' Jane threw his arm casually around Lisbon, causing a rush of heat to rise to her face, and started leading her down the hill towards the pond. Lisbon wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed.

'Hey!' Grace greeted them as they headed towards her. 'Merry Christmas!' She handed Lisbon a pair of skates. 'I already know your shoe size, so I got a pair for you.'

Lisbon took the skates and turned to Jane. 'Jane, you know I would rather be at home right now, so why have you come up with some ridiculous plan to wreck my day and make me freeze to death?'

'Do you honestly think I would have planned this if you wouldn't have liked it?' Jane asked. 'It will be fun, you'll love it once you get started, we can have fun, all of us, as a team.'

'Some team!' Lisbon snapped.

'What?' Rigsby looked confused.

'We aren't acting like a team! Just because you're not an agent Jane, doesn't mean you can go and flirt with your colleagues whenever you feel like it, messing them about!'

'I thought you liked it when I did that to you Teresa?' Jane smiled.

Rigsby gave a sudden cough that sounded very like a laugh.

Lisbon was embarrassed at his teasing, but fought it down as she looked him in the eye. 'You know I'm not talking about me! Why don't you just kiss Grace now and get it over with?' The second the words were out of her mouth, Lisbon regretted them. The blood flew to her face, as she realised she had just admitted that Jane flirting with Grace upset her. _Oh my god, this is so embarrassing!_

The team all burst out laughing. Rigsby gave Jane a high five. 'Nice one!'

'W-what?' It was Lisbon's turn to be confused.

'We had a plan,' Cho managed to tell her above the hoots of laughing from Jane, Rigsby and Grace.

'It was my idea really,' It was obvious that Rigsby was fighting to keep a straight face as he turned to his boss. 'But Jane was only too happy to carry it out.'

'Your defensive attitude means nothing to me,' Jane laughed. 'I can see through it all, you've been acting different around me for months, and you keep blushing. Rigsby noticed too, and said I should flirt with Grace in order to see if you got jealous. It worked, but I never thought you'd actually admit it to everyone!'

Once again, Lisbon felt herself cringe. She wanted a hole to open up in the ground to swallow her, anything to hide her from her sudden embarrassment. Why did Jane always make it awkward for her?

Seeing that her boss was struggling for words, Grace decided to wind her up just a little more. 'So it worked, and now we know how Lisbon feels,' she grinned. 'So Jane, why don't you just kiss Lisbon and get it over with?'

The team collapsed again, and Lisbon shot Grace a horrified glare.

'I'll think about it later,' Jane chuckled, putting his arm around Lisbon's shoulders again. 'But right now, lets go and skate, I'm going to enjoy picking a terrified, out of her depth Lisbon off the ice.'

Submitting to the obvious horror and continuing embarrassment that she was sure was to come, Lisbon let her laughing team lead her towards the frozen pond.

'Merry Christmas Teresa,' she muttered to herself bitterly.

**Yes, I know, random, pointless, probably OOC. But its Christmas, so its ok! Its my first time writing Mentalist, and we can't all be amazing writers like Em.**

**Love you Em xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**


End file.
